Today, users may select custom static images to use as desktop wallpaper on their processing devices. Graphics processing power of modern processing devices make it possible to offer substantially richer content as a desktop background. For example, a moving image may be provided as a desktop background for a processing device.
Previously, various applications have attempted to create acceptable motion desktops using a video overlay feature. When using the video overlay feature, a background area of a desktop may be assigned a particular chromatic key value. Video may be generated to a clipping region defined by the area having the particular chromatic key value. A clipping region is an area in which graphics or video may be presented. However, an approach using the video overlay feature has two problems. First, features such as shadow text and partially translucent elements are fundamentally incompatible with a background generated by using the video overlay feature. For example, a shadow portion of shadow text and areas behind translucent elements may have a color associated with an approximation of the particular chromatic key value. The areas having the approximation of the particular key chromatic key value may appear to be out of place with any video that may overlay areas having the particular chromatic key value. Second, because systems typically have only one video overlay resource, by capturing this resource and using it on the desktop, other applications such as, for example, media players or video editing applications, may be unable to acquire and use the video overlay resource.
In another approach to creating acceptable motion desktops, arbitrary content on the desktop may be drawn by creating complex clipping regions, which exclude desktop items, such as icons and associated text, as well as other items. The motion desktops performed poorly using this approach. The desktop items were not composed with a background and each time the background was updated, the updated background needed to be “cut out” using a clipping region. This resulted in a poor user experience. Further, this approach is complex for requiring that the clipping region be maintained as the desktop is updated and this approach does not consider how to treat translucent elements.